Counter tops what material?

A round-up of various counter top surfaces that includes some unusual ones:

charlie wrote: ...

Ah, I was going to ask how you joined pieces but I gather from this they're not actually joined but have a deliberate joint w/ a decorative feature -- kewl! I'd probably have tried to figure out how I was going to polish and edge well enough to mate a la Corian, etc.

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Thanks Mike for a very informative reply.

steve

Testing tends to rank quartz (like Silestone) contertops on top, and I tend to agree.

Quartz does not stain. Test it yourself, as they let you take home samples for free. Granite can stain especially if you leave a drop of oil or peanut butter in spot unnoticed for a great length of time. We've had a number of "help, my granite is stained" posts here. Once granite is stained, there's not a lot you can do.

Quartz, like granite can take an accidently placed hot pan. Again, test it yourself. You can build small matchstick fires or leave a smoking hot cast iron pan on quartz with no damage. Both quartz and granite have a slight possibility of cracking from thermal shock, but it's not a big risk (but don't get in the habit of misplacing a 700 degree pan). Only a metal countertop will perform better here, but metal scratches easily, and is spendy.

Quartz is very hard. It's like granite without granite's softer components that make it porous and cause it to require periodic sealing. Both will have great longevity against scratches.

Quartz has a higher bending strength for bigger overhangs, and quartz has no microcracks or chips that might be a source for breakage either during fab or use, like granite does. Quartz' lack of pores makes it virtually impervious to molds, mildew, bacteria, fungus.

The only advantage granite has over quartz is natural grain flow beauty, but then again, that can be a liability when trying to make seams disappear.

Other random thoughts: Concrete is WAY too prone to cracks and chips for countertop use. Marble is too prone to acids and stains. Tile tops are cheap but a joke. Everyone I've known that had them loathed them (grout, mildew, not smooth, hard to clean). No matter what countertop you get, you have to use cutting boards to save your knives from being dulled from hard materials and from possibly damaging counters just from high force divided by small area of the knife edge.

One test you may want to do that I never got around to is taking equal sized samples of quartz and granite, and just bang them with a hammer a few dozen times with increasing force to see what happens (with eye protection, of course)

Anyway, don't take my word for it. Get samples of quartz and put it thought the wringer. Right now, Silestone has the nicest looking patterns, but then you're stuck with Home Despot and 100% payment in full before work begins.

I bet Formica comes back when all the yuppies actually start using their kitchen. Bear in mind, if you drop something on your stone countertop, something breaks, usually the glass, dish or mug. Plastics burn and both scratch. Sure you can have it filled and buffed out but that ain't free. Mica can still burn if you dropped a red hot skillet on it and you can scratch it but it is cheap enough to throw away.

With all this in mind I went with wood. Maple workbench tops with a bunch of coats of poly shot on them. I have stainless around the sink and cooktop area with a lift out cutting board section..

You can't pour boiling-hot water into a Corian sink. You can if it's a stainless sink.

Funny, I can. Have been for years now.

I do run cold water into the sink at the same time.

Another poster said Corian scratches. I can't imagine what you'd have to do to it to scratch it.

Can't stain it either.

I cracked ours by getting a microwave very hot with it sitting directly on the counter in a corner.

The lifetime warranty meant free repair. The repair is invisible.

All and all, I think it's the perfect material.

Someone was recently complaining about a dark color. Ours is light colored.

Then either tile or natual stone (not marble). All the manufactured materials - Corian, "quartz", et al - are made with minerals in a plastic and the plastic is sensitive to heat and abrasion.

Personally, I like tile. It is relatively inexpensive, has a huge variety of selections in color, size and style; it is impervious to heat abd won't scratch from normal utensils...very durable against most anything except a hammer.

People complain that the grout becomes discolored...the solution is to use dark grout. People complain that it is hard to clean...danged if I know why. People complain that tiled surfaces are bumpy...the solution is to use tiles that are flat and without formed edges.

Soapstone (talc) is certainly soft but it is NOT porous.

Honest?

i used 1/2" tied rebar, so i didn't want that to get too close to the surface. besides, i was insetting large chunks of polished rock in the edges and surface.

According to charlie :

Depends on the sealer used, how hot the pot is, and how long it's left. Yes, the stone conducts a lot of heat away, but if you apply enough of it for long enough, bad things can still happen.

For example, epoxy (it's mentioned as an option in a number of DIY concrete counter books) used as a sealer will discolor and/or cloud up at 150F, and start to do nastier things above 300F. Heck, I got epoxy to cloud up with

Some professional counter people claim to be using sealers that are impervious to high heat. Others don't.

It looks like some of the web sites talking about granite and hot pots are talking about the material _without_ sealer.

According to mike :

Quartz is ground stone (lots of quartz ;-) with a 10% or thereabouts volume made up with a resin (phenolic usually I think) binding everything together. It's a solidified slurry. I'm surprised you could get that to thermal-crack. While phenolic will take considerably higher heat than other plastics, I wouldn't want to place any bets on a smoking cast iron frypan being left to cool off.

According to Dan Espen :

Use it as a cutting board, and then you'll see. It doesn't cut up nearly as much as a polyethylene cutting board, but it certainly does get chewed up. It seems more prone to scratching than laminate is.

We have three types of countertops - granite, stainless steel and concrete. The granite is for show and for a cool surface for pastry work. The stainless is for the main working surfaces and on both sides of the stovetop. Stainless scratches fairly easily bu we call it patina. After a year and a half it still looks good. We move hot pots and pans from cooktop onto SS counters with no damage at all. Stainless was the cheapest - we have three SS counters and two have welded in sinks. One sink was commercial bought and welded in so you can't see any seam at all. The other sink is a huge custom size and made the same time as the sink. We got marine edges on the SS countertops so minor spills don't run off the fronts and low backboards so spills wouldn't leak down the back walls. The counter with the custom made sink was cheap especially considering a retail sink a bit smaller would have cost more than $400.

Concrete is a great material. It is only 1 1/2 inches thick with slightly rounded corners. It scratches about the same as granite but we don't use it for a working conter - it is by the bar sink island. You can get any color, shape and options, including one-piece sinks cast at same time as counter. We had glass beads from the dollar store put into the concrete and when the top was ground smooth they turned into nice flat circles - added a nice bright color touch. Our supplier came and made mylar templates on the finished counters and then made the tops in his factory with reinforcing, etc. Weight is not too bad with the 1 1/2 inch thickness. Works out to similar thickness as the granite and SS.Sealing is same as for the granite. Cost was similar to granite, a bit cheaper because you don't pay for waste material.

If best is wanted, crystal counter top!

I have a corian cutting board. It does get scratches, but not real bad.

But, that's not normal use. I don't think anything but butcher block is going to hold up to that kind of treatment.

Dan Espen wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mk.telcordia.com:

that must do wonders for your knive edges....

Corian says

"They are less damaging to knives..."

Yes, I believe them.